Every year, the College of Natural Sciences invites faculty, staff and students to send in the most striking and fascinating images from their research for the college-wide Visualizing Science competition. Jesse Plotkin's entrance of cultured astrocytes was awarded the Top Prize!  Click here to see all the winners!

About the image:
Plotkin and other researchers are conducting a study investigating how star-shaped cells called astrocytes, found in the brain and spinal cord and that are responsible for vital functions in the central nervous system, change over time and whether alcohol exposure has an impact on their development. 

The cells pictured here, using confocal microscopy, were from a control sample cultured for two weeks under normal conditions. They were stained using immunohistochemistry with antibodies against s100b (green), a calcium-binding protein expressed predominantly in astrocytes, Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein (magenta), and Phalloidin (red), a fluorescent tag that binds actin. GFAP and actin are proteins found within the structural cytoskeleton of the cells. The entire image was stitched together by software from many smaller images.